scene “We’re always spot-on with the yearly fairytale revival,” Harriet comments. “When we did ‘Sleeping Beauty’, Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent was out in the cinemas, then there was that remake of ‘Cinderella’, and we also staged that story, and now ‘Peter Pan’...” Coincidence? Not at all! This amateur company is trendier than the trendiest trend. As an amateur company, such mammoth production is very demanding on the 10-15-strong cast of principals and large chorus of children who start ‘chaotic’ rehearsing in September separately, to eventually merge after Christmas and spend most of their January free time at the Ince’s Hall, culminating in nine performances spread over the last two weekends of the month. Especially hectic on the two Saturdays, since the cast and crew spend twelve hours in theatre and make the “At curtainmost of the interval by stealing a nap in up time, I just the corner or munching on wine gums. want to run...” there it goes... I need to sneeze!” That’s There’s also sets painting (the backstage the beauty of live theatre: one must make crew is notorious for their stealthy set the most of blunders and keep the action changes behind the black curtain, while roll: “Another time, my heel got stuck in the action continues on the proscenium) the trap door handle when I was supand costume sewing, a task undertaken posed to storm off after a rant, so I had to by Margaret and her ‘small army of sewing remove my shoe and walk away without it.” ladies’, as Harriet describes them when After all, theatre imitates life - good job in she admits she cannot sew to save her life, keeping it real! “The worst one so far was albeit trying her hand at set decoration. the time I lost my voice in the Wizard of Oz. I was croaky that day, but there I hop One of Harriet’s earliest Gibraltarian on stage with a guffaw and suddenly I’m memories is tagging along her mother in mute! My mum dubbed me from backstage and out every fabric shop both sides of the and I wore a microphone the following border in search of the right material for nights.” That was embarrassing, she admits, her costumes: “Our home is encumbered for someone famed for her with props, and it turns into this magstentorian stage presence. ical world of make-believe, you just “When I am cannot ignore panto fever. And once playing a This January she fights that’s over, we rest for a couple of tragic part, it weeks and then we dive into the late pantalooned pirates in the takes its toll pandemonium that the April production for the Royal Navy on my mood.” Amateur Drama Festival.” Trafalgar Theatre Group raises as their colourful panacea to post-Christmas blues. “It’s the last one directed by my mum, I know she says it every year, but this time she means it, and she is training the people who will take over, so the panto tradition doesn’t get lost in Gibraltar. We will have a large backstage crew to deal with set changes and special effects. I can’t give too much away, but expect spectacular.”
Harriet was introduced to projection and enunciation by Christine Thomson and Jean Penney who led the TTG junior group. They were very strict and made the children repeat and repeat their lines until they were heard from the last row. Harriet was naturally loud, the loudest, so the group had to live up to her standards. Seventeen years on, she is still struck by stage fright: “At curtain-up time, I just want to run, dash off and I would be half way down Main Street before they notice I’m missing... then I step forward, and it is all forgotten.” If her career as a professional thespian is on hold at the moment, the passion is still burning bright, and she can’t imagine what she would become without such panoply of drama in her life: “I went through difficult times recently, and if it wasn’t for my commitment to theatre, I don’t know where I would be today.”
Indeed, Margaret Seed popularised this very British theatrical genre in Gibraltar, enhanced with a local unique flavour that would be a shame to see extinct, particularly because it is the annual show that children look forward to participating in on both sides of the spotlights, as actors or spectators. Either side, they get to yell out loud their lines or cheers and jeers. GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016
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